“We Should Only Allow …”

I’m reading a twenty year-old article on the subject of divorce written by a Christian whose judgment and understanding of scripture I respect and whose personal conduct as a believer is excellent.

So it’s hard to explain why I feel a bit irked as I work my way through it. I think it has to do with the phrase: “We should only allow …”

I wonder, who is “we”, and what is the biblical mechanism by which we choose to “allow” or “not allow” certain sorts of choices to be made by other believers?

Making Sure

People who don’t think a genuine believer in Jesus Christ belongs irrevocably to him use a variety of verses to support their claim that it is possible to be saved and then lose your salvation.

This isn’t a verse I’m used to seeing used that way:

“Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”

The usual suspects are full of catchy expressions like “eternal sin”, “sin that leads to death” or even “impossible to restore them again to repentance”. Separate such phrases from their contexts and it is possible to become quite confused and concerned about the permanence of salvation.

Angels Unawares

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

In accepting the truth that there exists a world of spirits, a unseen reality beyond that which we can observe and quantify, we open ourselves to a range of possibilities we are far from equipped to explore intelligently.

How does a Christian process such a thing?

Elders and HR Departments

Gotcha, Mr. Employee!

Having recently experienced a round of mandatory workplace sensitivity indoctrination administered by our Human Resources department (part of a company-wide initiative, not the result of any particular violation on my part), I’m struck by the differences in how offenses are handled between believers and between my fellow employees.

When I say “not the result of any particular violation”, I should probably append the word “yet” just to be safe. The number of ways one may offend in the workplace today is truly remarkable, and there’s no guarantee I will not fall afoul of their ever-morphing web of ultra-flexible guidelines at some point.

They’re like flypaper. I kid you not.

Choosing Sides

Ah, Numbers 16, the famous Korah chapter.

I cringe when I read it, I cringe when I read other people writing about it, and I’ll almost surely be cringing as I write about it myself.

And yet it’s there, and New Testament writers have no problem drawing on it for the purpose of instructing Christians, despite the fact that many of us feel it would be awfully convenient if the chapter would simply go away.

Since it won’t, let’s look at it carefully.

The 1830 Principle

“Sorry, you’re just not old enough ...”

I’ve read this statement or something quite like it maybe ten times in the last year:

“Rapture doctrine did not exist before John Darby invented it in 1830 AD. Before it ‘popped into John Darby’s head’ no one had ever heard of a secret rapture doctrine.”

It’s even been picked up by Wikipedia, which I guess makes it a “thing”. They won’t go quite so far as to say Darby invented it, but they concede that he certainly popularized the teaching.

Too Hot to Handle: With One Accord

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Tom: You and I were talking last week, Immanuel Can, about this recent exchange of ideas I had with Crawford Paul at assemblyHUB — civilly, of course — on the subject of worship, specifically what we refer to as the “Lord’s Supper”, that ended with Crawford pointing out that “The topic is much bigger than this article”.

I couldn’t agree more, so I’ve written here and here about it. But I’d really like to explore the subject a little more with you. What appears to be eating Crawford and others is that the traditions they have grown up with about corporate worship appear to be just that — largely traditional, rather than scriptural.

This is a subject I know you love, so I wouldn’t want to leave you out. Specifically, I’m interested in exploring our corporate freedom in worship, but not divorcing that from the issue of our corporate responsibilities.

Immanuel Can: Right. Count me in. Where would you like to start?

Marketing Jesus

This article about effectively marketing the church was forwarded to me by a reader along with a two-word review: “fantastically misguided”.

“Misguided” is a good way to put it. I think Cameron and Tara from Christ & Pop Culture are well-intentioned. They contend that Jesus must be the focus of all attempts to promote a church and that “church marketing strategies applied without guidance from Scripture undermine the kingdom of God by causing Christians to alter their identities”.

So with Christ as the focus and scripture for guidance, what could go wrong? Lots, it seems.

The Rabble Among Them

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Giant Reset Button

Photo: Flattop341

Baruch Davidson notes that the Jubilee year is not observed or commemorated in modern Israel.

Before the Assyrian conquest of the northern portion of the divided kingdom in the sixth century BC, Davidson says, the Jubilee was regularly celebrated. But a dispute over the interpretation of the words “all who live on it” in Leviticus 25:10 has led many Jews to conclude that the festive year of freedom may only be celebrated when all twelve tribes are living in the Promised Land. So until the return of the ten “lost” tribes, the Jubilee is on hold.

That may not seem a big deal today. It would have been a huge deal to an Israelite in the years before the Assyrian captivity.

Here Comes the Baggage

Yesterday I briefly noted some of the different approaches taken within Christendom to remembering the Lord Jesus. If you haven’t read that post first, this one will probably make less sense than it might otherwise.

The New Testament does not lay down many hard and fast rules about the mechanics of worship, only that we are to “remember” our Lord in the sharing of the bread and the cup and to examine ourselves prior to doing so. Arguably this is the most important part of the Christian life. One can be as active in church as humanly possible, as diligent and and hard-working as anyone, and even passionate about meeting with the people of God.

But forget Christ and it’s all a waste of time.

Calling an Audible

Some call it the Lord’s Supper or the Lord’s Table. Some refer to it as Communion, Holy Communion or the Eucharist. Some call it the Breaking of Bread. Some call it the Worship Service. And some would argue that not all these terms refer to precisely the same thing.

I agree, actually, but it’s not my purpose to set out all such similarities and differences in a single blog post. My point is that, different as they may be, all these overlapping practices (rightly or wrongly) draw their scriptural authority from the words of the Lord Jesus to his disciples at their last Passover supper and the things he did there.

Let’s concede this: whatever we call it, none of us celebrate it precisely the way it was celebrated in the early church, and it’s quite possible that even in the first century there was little consistency from one local church to another in the way it was practiced.

Generational Train Wreck Alert!

It’s becoming increasingly hard for me to dismiss the conviction that this generation deserves whatever it gets.

I refuse to believe every college or university student in the Western world is out of their minds, but the media seems bound and determined to prove me wrong.

For these lost twenty-somethings, the capacity to invent drama where no drama exists is apparently beyond measuring. Their will to be miserable no matter what their circumstances seems boundless. Their sense of entitlement and victimhood is off the charts.

Too Hot to Handle: Bucking or Buckling?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

This Is Interesting ...

Well, it’s interesting to me anyway.

The giving of the Ten Commandments to Israel at Mount Sinai occurred on the third new moon after the people of Israel had left Egypt. God addressed them directly in a thick cloud from the peak of a fiery, quaking mountain amid thunder, flashes of lightning and the sound of a trumpet.

The people were understandably petrified.

How Do You Love the Gospel?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Work Your Way Upstream

Douglas Wilson is, in his own words, “evangelical, postmill, Calvinist, Reformed, and Presbyterian, pretty much in that order”.

One out of five ain’t bad, I suppose.

But hey, I’m an equal opportunity reader. Despite my lack of common ground with many of Mr. Wilson’s expressed convictions, I find much of what he writes profitable.

That Wacky Old Testament (4)

Bible Babble’s atheist webmaster appears confused by the second commandment:

“People seem to think the second commandment says you aren’t supposed to make a graven image of God, and that’s it. But you are not to make any graven images of anything in heaven, in the earth, or in the water. This would include no graven images of fish, moles, worms, birds, shrimp, ants, and all sorts of things. One must wonder why God was so worried about these things that he felt the need to put these ahead of murder and stealing.”

The apostle Paul saw it as his job (and the job of those he travelled and taught with) to demolish “every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God”.

You know, I think this just may qualify …

The Greatest Identity Crisis In History

Ron Cantor says Messianic Jews are the most hated people on earth. That can’t be fun.

Much has been written about the difficulty of living between two countries (not to mention while living for another world entirely). This particular exchange of ideas occurred elsewhere, but is too relevant, useful and thought-provoking to be buried in a thread of hundreds of comments.

I’m sharing it here with permission.

John Piper, Social Activism and ‘Doing Good’

Debt in the Americas by % of GDP
(hint: black is not good)

Extracted from their original context, many verses may be stretched to the point where they say almost anything we’d like them to.

John Piper, for instance, finds social activism in scripture in places where, try as I might, I just don’t see it:

“It is right and good to pursue obedience to Galatians 6:10, which says: ‘So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.’ ”

With you so far, John. But now things get dicey. In Mr. Piper’s view, “doing good” is a pretty broad term.

Too Hot to Handle: Off the Rails or On Track?

The most recent version of this post is available here.

All About Me

Sometimes I wonder if people actually read what they are writing and saying.

Have you ever played back a voice message and been embarrassed by your own wording or tone? Or perhaps re-read something you wrote ten years ago and been stunned by your own immodesty, immaturity, naivety or selfishness? If you have, then you understand the way time, spiritual growth and objectivity allow us to see the holes in our own arguments.

INtent vs. CONtent

I’ve harped on this one before, but I keep hearing people applying Paul’s instructions to Titus just a little too broadly:

“Remind them … to speak evil of no one …”

Correctly understood, this is sound advice that makes for consistent Christian living (not to mention it’s the word of God). But applied to everything we don’t like willy-nilly, it quickly degenerates into silliness.

Not every negative statement is “speaking evil”.

Why Donald Trump is Not the End of the World

A truth that sometimes gets back-burnered:

“There is no authority except from God, and those [powers] that exist have been instituted by God.”

(Romans 13:1)

As has been pointed out ad nauseum (I heard it again this week), this verse of holy writ was written in a day when Nero was emperor. This would be the same Nero rumored to have had captured Christians dipped in oil and set on fire in his garden at night as a source of light, who executed his own mother and is alleged to have poisoned his step-brother.

Alongside that track record, Donald Trump’s history of womanizing, “unpresidential character” and snarky, distasteful personal remarks is weak tea.

Appearance and Reality

SMC from the outside

I happened to be in Palo Alto, California a while back and saw Stanford Memorial Church from the inside.

It’s an amazing structure, built in the memory of her husband by Jane Stanford between 1898 and 1903. The memorial service for Steve Jobs was held there and it has been called the university’s “architectural crown jewel”. I wouldn’t disagree.

You can Google Image it if you’re interested. I’d rather not violate anyone’s copyright by posting their pictures, but some of them are as beautiful as the experience.

The Stakes

A good writer makes you care about his characters.

When you’re reading a novel, you are probably not consciously asking yourself at every moment, “Does this person I’m reading about really matter to me?” Being occupied with such questions takes you out of the story and defeats the purpose of the narrative. You simply find the characters likable or despicable, interesting or uninteresting, and on that basis you decide whether to continue reading.

Their motives matter, and what’s at stake for them matters, in ensuring that you remain engaged in the unfolding drama.

That Wacky Old Testament (3)

Greg at Holey Books complains that the Levitical law is sexist:

“Women Are Worth Less (Lev. 27:1-4). This is one of those passages that really, really should make believers — especially women — question just how much of the Old Testament we can take seriously. According to Leviticus, a man’s worth — in “dedicating a person to the LORD” — is 50 shekels. A woman, however, is only worth 30. (NB: the ratio here is strangely reminiscent of the U.S. Constitution’s provision that a slave was only worth 3/5 of a white man. There must be like the “golden mean” of massive inequalities.) It is difficult to explain this away without logically also concluding that part of scripture was a historical artifact of its time that we should not take seriously. Unless, of course, you actually hold that men and women aren’t equal or shouldn’t be equal. Which would, obviously, be absurd.”

Notice that Greg is reacting as if Leviticus declares that the intrinsic value of a woman before God is only 60% of a man’s value, as if the Law somehow diminishes her personhood. He finds such an idea offensive to the core and “absurd”.

Too Hot to Handle: Empty-Somethings

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Laughter of Jackals

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Quote of the Day (21)

The Ten Commandments begin with “You shall have no other gods before me”.

It would have been almost automatic for those who first heard these words to apply them primarily to the false gods served by the nations around them. Steve Shirley at Jesus Alive claims scripture makes reference to 34 separate pagan deities from Adrammelech to Tammuz and Tartak, and I have no reason to challenge him since doing so would be a lot of work for not much payoff. Suffice it to say there were plenty of options.

And yet none of these “gods” are giving Jehovah much competition these days.

Something Worth Dying For

So I’m lunching in my favourite café.

You will forgive me for eavesdropping, I’m sure. If you’ve ever done the lunch thing in a major metropolis on a main street, you know that bodies are close together and overhearing one another is usually unavoidable.

Well, forgive me or don’t, but a group of five a few feet away are discussing a friend who, after all their best efforts to cure him, remains “religious”. Poor benighted fellow.

And I’m thinking … where does this come from, this compulsion to strip others of the comfort of faith?

Pretending to See the Future

The most recent version of this post is available here.

That Night

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Very First Thing

The apostle John is in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day. I will leave the reader to work out precisely what that means.

E. W. Bullinger was sure John is telling us he saw the prophetic “Day of the Lord”, and there is no doubt John did precisely that. Others who have grown up with the expression are convinced John means to say that the things he experienced occurred on a Sunday.

I don’t know that the distinction is worth fighting over. What strikes me instead is the disconnect between what John sees and the very first thing he writes about it.

Too Hot to Handle: To Bee or Not to Bee?

In which our regular writers toss around subjects a little more volatile than usual.

Immanuel Can: I found this website, and I’ve got to admit, Tom, I laughed. And then I thought to myself, “You know, that isn’t all that funny”. Actually, it’s quite common, and quite tragic.

But I guess that’s what irony does: it strikes us at first one way, and leaves us feeling another.

So let’s talk about having a sense of humour. Maybe I can begin with the obvious: God seems to have given us all a sense of humour; but how is a Christian to use it?

Spirits and Spirits

The original Greek New Testament consists entirely of capital letters. It has no spaces, no punctuation, no accents or diacritical marks.

Before this morning I knew most of that, though not the bit about the capitals. There was, apparently, no functional equivalent in ancient Greek to our lower case letters, which leaves us at the mercy of translators when we try to make distinctions between concepts like “Spirit” (as in “Holy Spirit” on the many occasions when the word “Holy” is not supplied) and “spirit” (the human spirit, or possibly a spirit of another sort entirely).

I’m indebted to Tertius for many of the following thoughts …

One Wild and Awful Moment

The most recent version of this post is available here.

That Wacky Old Testament (2)

As a teenager I spent a fair bit of time at the home of a friend whose father grew up in WW2 England.

Back in 1940, the Germans did their best to cut off the English food supply. Submarines patrolled the English Channel and the Atlantic, sinking boats destined for the U.K. Less than a quarter of the millions of tons of food usually imported into England actually made it to its destination.

Rationing was introduced to make sure everyone got their share of what was available.

Happier in Exile

Tucked into a chapter of the Levitical law that gives detailed instructions about the limitations of the master/slave relationship, the sale and redemption of property, and borrowing and lending is a short statement of ownership given without amplification or explanation.

That statement explains, well, pretty much everything else.

And though these are instructions to Israel that have no force today for any number of theological and practical reasons, it’s pretty hard not to see the application to Christians.

In the Power of the Evil One

“The whole world lies in the power of the evil one,” says John the apostle.

That’s an intimidating thought, and there’s plenty of evidence to back it up. Today, just as in John’s day, there is not a single nation on earth that orders its politics and governance — let alone its popular culture — on principles consistent with the will of God and the character of Jesus Christ. Not one.

As a Christian, no matter who you are and where in the world you happen to live, you are in enemy territory.

Amping Up the Leafy Greens

In doing research for our “Wacky Old Testament” series (which exists to demonstrate that it isn’t wacky at all), I’ve already come across several different kinds of difficulties people run into when reflecting on the Old Testament laws.

You get people who claim to be Christian (or at least religious) and “just don’t get it”. You get people whose particular brand of systematic theology has confused them about the applicability of the Levitical law to Christians today. Their attempts to graft watered-down versions of God’s commands to Israel into a modern setting are labor-intensive, occasionally funny and more than a little sad.

Then you get people like Valerie Tarico.

Too Hot to Handle: Evolving Christianity

The most recent version of this post is available here.

The Disappearing Platform

There’s something wonderful about finding like-minded souls with whom to share our beliefs and concerns.

Totalitarian regimes grasp this, so they make it difficult for their citizens to exchange ideas, however trivial those ideas may appear to be. Censorship in Nazi Germany was extreme and strictly enforced. Stalin sent fellow Russians to the gulags for up to 25 years simply for telling jokes about Communist Party officials. None of this was original to Hitler or Stalin: the second century Romans had their own secret police equivalent called the Frumentarii that not only covertly gathered military intelligence throughout the empire but even spied on the members of the emperor’s household.

If people can’t freely and comfortably exchange ideas, they can’t form effective political opposition, or so goes the thinking.

How Not To Be Forgiven

Forgiveness is the great equalizer.

In extending Christian forgiveness, we acknowledge our own ongoing sins and failures and accept back those who have sinned against us in the knowledge that we, too, will fail them tomorrow and will go on failing them until the Lord returns.

Forgiveness makes every person my equal and everyone my brother or sister in the only sense that equality can ever be attained on earth and in the only sense that, from a human perspective, really matters.

But some people will not be forgiven.

That Wacky Old Testament (1)

Taken in isolation or viewed from a distance of several thousand years and from a completely different cultural background, almost any Bible instruction may initially seem a little alien.

People are generally uninterested in doing historical research or establishing cultural context before they start forming opinions. It’s a whole lot of work … and, let’s face it, it’s fun to mock things. It makes us feel intelligent or morally superior.

So taking a poke at certain of the Old Testament commands that God gave through Moses to the people of Israel as “weird” is becoming increasingly trendy.

The Author of Confusion

Paul Mizzi is an evangelical pastor on the largely-Catholic island of Malta. His essays on various aspects of the Christian faith may be found on the website Truth for Today.

Malta got a visit from the apostle Paul in the first century that included a number of miracles of healing (and undoubtedly the preaching of the gospel to go with them). But despite the fact that Malta has had apostolic testimony for two thousand years, the structure and function of their evangelical churches today seems to have more in common with that of North American denominational Protestantism than with that of the church of the New Testament.

In Paul Mizzi’s church the distinction between clergy and laity is very well defined.

The Myth of Ideological Neutrality

Hmm ... which one is neutral?

I remember a time very, very long ago when this sort of thing may actually have gotten traction between my ears:

“As an open-minded nonreligious parent, it’s important to me that my daughter make up her own mind about what to believe — independent of me, independent of her grandparents, independent of her friends and neighbors. I want her to learn about various systems of belief, and about science and evidence, and then decide what seems right to her. If she changes her mind along the way, that’s fine! As long as it’s her own inquisitiveness and independent thought that prompts each change of heart.

You’re with me on this, right?”

No, but Wendy Thomas Russell is not alone in her desire to step back and avoid unduly influencing the way her child forms her beliefs about religion.

When Life Really Hurts

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: Keeping It Controversial

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A Better Second Fiddle

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Look At Those Goalposts Move!

In addition to constantly meeting facts with feelings, you may have noticed that the religious left tries to avoid addressing opposing arguments directly — a canny strategy when one has little of substance to put forward.

Instead, by moving the goalposts, they reframe the question under discussion so that the other side finds itself inadvertently giving up intellectual or spiritual ground without ever having really lost it. The issue, or at least part of it, is conceded without any discussion at all.

The trick is to recognize goalpost shifting when you see it and refuse to reframe.

The Twitterized Bible

How about that morning verse, eh?

Ben Irwin dislikes the ‘Twitterized’ Bible.

You know, the way Christians tend to quote scripture in tiny fragments. He’s concerned that in doing so we’ll lose the Author’s original meaning and not even realize it’s gone. Twitterizing is only one name for it. Others call it “using the Bible as a medicine cabinet” or “prooftexting”.

For the most part I agree with Ben, so I’m going to tread carefully here.

After all, I have harped here about context as the most critically important interpretive tool in the Bible student’s tool kit so many times I’ve lost track. Taken out of their original context, verses of holy writ may be misunderstood or have their meanings entirely inverted.

But not always.

Communicable Defilement

Yesterday I shared some thoughts about the Levitical laws having to do with uncleanness and ritual defilement, and I applied them to the subject of mankind’s relationship to its Creator.

Since nothing happened to Israel in a vacuum and precious few of their laws are without some practical application to the Christian life, today I’d like to look at the issue of ongoing defilement and uncleanness in the era beyond the Law of Moses.

But before we do that, we need to take one last look back at Leviticus.

The Twelve-Year Illustration

The first two gospels tell the story of an unnamed woman who suffered from a discharge of blood for twelve years.

Believing even the briefest, most ephemeral contact with Jesus would heal her of her condition, she crept up behind the Lord to touch the fringe of his robe. And we all know the rest of the story, including the “your faith has made you well” part.

Mark records that the woman had “suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse”. Having spent some time in the care of doctors, I can relate. I can more or less imagine what that might have meant for her medically.

The part of the story I never really thought about before is what it meant for a Jewish woman socially and religiously to be declared ritually “unclean”.

Inbox: The Worst Possible Answer

Bernie continues to muse about suffering from a biblical perspective:

“Some other things to consider:

• Of the four identified types of suffering [see previous post], Christians get all four (yay!), non-Christians only get the first two.
• Suffering of types two and three is not the mark of a failing Christian, it is the mark of a succeeding one. The more we do for God and the more we get serious about bringing Christ-likeness out fully, the more we will feel the knife — or, a better image — feel the weight of the cross. Opposition grows as we mature and become productive. This is (I think) why the people closest to God seem to suffer the most and endure the greatest hardships.

Too Hot to Handle: Rules of Combat

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Inbox: Applied Grace and the Smoking Ruins of My Life

Bernie holds forth about four causes of suffering:

“I suggest the source of suffering is four-fold in a mature Christian view:

1. Sin in me (bad choices I make to my own detriment) — God’s purpose is discipline and correction.
2. Sin around me (sins of others / fallen environment) — God’s purpose is to produce a stronger faith and, in our dissatisfaction here, a longing for our true home.
3. Satan against me (the opposition made to those who are seeking to be productive for God) — “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus ...” You know the rest. If you’re going to be productive for God, you’re going to get hit often and painfully.
4. God for me (a loving Father conforming me — through suffering — to produce Christlikeness: “The fellowship of his suffering”).

I’ve Got What It Takes — Relatively Speaking

I can’t tell you what sort of ideological programming a child in Ukrainian or Polish or Argentinean or Nigerian society may be exposed to, but for years kids growing up in the Western world have been hearing that we can do or be anything we want.

“If you can dream it, you can do it,” Walt Disney is purported to have said. “If you think you can do it, you can,” confirms John Burroughs. “I don't think anything is unrealistic if you believe you can do it,” agrees Richard Evans.

In the absence of a plausible counter-narrative, children bombarded with such sentiments may absorb them uncritically.

Don’t Forget What You Never Knew

The most recent version of this post is available here.

Quote of the Day (20)

For anyone who missed it, after being waylaid by MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, presidential candidate Donald Trump mused briefly about criminalizing the choice to abort a child last week, before doing an abrupt about-face once it became clear he’d stepped into a minefield and had, at least temporarily, united the pro- and anti-abortion crowd against himself.

Dalrock’s is the only explanation I’ve read so far that makes perfect sense.

Too Convenient

I was out last night with an unsaved friend.

I’ve written about him before. Like many others, he knows just enough about Christianity to think he understands it; just enough to think the decision that faith in Jesus Christ is not for him is a choice he has made intelligently on the basis of years of shrewd observation of Christians and our various failings. And believing his understanding adequate, he has little interest in hearing any more. He’s reluctant to get into the subject with me because he has a fairly good idea where I’ll be going.

He believes in God, he tells me, and I have no reason to doubt it. But his version of God is vastly different from the God of the Bible.

Punishment and Deterrence

 The most recent version of this post is available here.

Too Hot to Handle: To Debate or Not to Debate

The most recent version of this post is available here.

One Corporate Setting

What is the “whole church” anyway?

Crawford Paul says, “Home studies, conversation studies, group prayer times etc. do not fall under that condition [the instructions of 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2 about church order in which women are silent and men teach and lead, Ed.] as long as the whole church is not expected to attend or be gathered in one corporate setting. In these cases, men and women are free to participate in those activities.”

But what scriptural authority does Crawford have for this freedom of audible participation for both sexes in situations in which the “whole church” is not expected to be present but any combination of its members may be? If he has any, he does not cite it.

This may be because such authority does not exist.

Culture Creep

Early this year, Crawford Paul wrote about how local churches can change to promote growth. One commenter gently took him to task:

“Post what changes you want, and what it means to open discussions (women speaking?) and be more specific.”

Short version: I jumped all over the commenter, who seemed generally opposed to change in the church and suggested Mr. Paul’s posts were fostering discontent. It seemed to me he was reading things into Crawford’s appeals for change that simply weren’t there (the subject of women speaking was never addressed in the post). I even suggested the commenter might be jumping at shadows.

Now I’m wondering if maybe I owe the poor guy an apology. He may not be so paranoid after all.

The Sincerest Form

Imitation ... or caricature?

My uncle, having lived in England all his life, has an accent. It is strong and distinctive.

On occasion, my brother deliberately imitates him to humorous effect. You might think his version of my uncle exaggerated until you hear the real thing, when it becomes clear my brother’s homage may well not go far enough. Other times, in conversation with my uncle, one or another of his Canadian relatives finds himself unconsciously picking up and mimicking my uncle’s speech patterns.

Imitation may be conscious or unconscious, but it is always an action (as opposed to a state of mind). It is something you have to DO. Thinking about imitating someone is not imitation.

I Found God in a Hallmark Card

Three unfortunate Will Bowen readers commiserate ...

Or not. Maybe you saw this on Facebook yesterday:

“EASTER symbolizes our own capacity to transform. Our ability to die to our former selves and awaken to a whole new life. Your ideal self lies dormant within you now ready to be called forth, ready to shine, ready to bless your world.”

— Will Bowen

Uh, well ... not exactly.